NEW-Updated: Orleans waste-water plan fails

Friday

Jun 28, 2013 at 12:01 AMJun 28, 2013 at 4:59 AM

Second-time around proved no charm for the Orleans wastewater plan, Phase 1-A which would have spent $3.5-million dollars to do a final design for most of the downtown area and do a preliminary engineering design for satellite collection and treatment around Meetinghouse Pond. It failed to get the required two-thirds vote at the Orleans Special Town Meeting Thursday night.

Rich Eldred

Second-time around proved no charm for the Orleans wastewater plan, Phase 1-A which would have spent $3.5-million dollars to do a final design for most of the downtown area and do a preliminary engineering design for satellite collection and treatment around Meetinghouse Pond. It failed to get the required two-thirds vote at the Orleans Special Town Meeting Thursday night.

The yes votes were 854, the no votes 592 so 59-percent of the town voted in favor of the plan, the proponents of the citizen’s petition needed 968 votes – they were 114 votes short. At the regular town meeting in May the same plan came up six votes short.

“I’m very happy,” Gary Furst, President of the Orleans Water Alliance, who opposed phase 1-A. This was a much stronger margin. It’s clear we now need to work together to get clean water that’s affordable and works for the town. I’m happy for the town and very committed to working together with everyone to get a solution.”

Doug Fromm President of Orleans Can presented the article, identical to the former town meeting article. Orleans Can helped collect 622 signatures to call the special town meeting to consider the one item.

“I wish more people understood what we were trying to say,” he said afterwards. “It’s always easier to say no than yes. Two thirds is a steep hill to climb.”

The vote was by paper ballot and took quite a while to take and to count. The meeting, which started about a half hour late around 7 p.m. ended just before ten. The crowd overflowed the sweltering gym and the line of voters waiting to get in snaked out to the parking lot of Eldredge Field. Twenty-seven percent of all town voters were there.

The $3.5-million would’ve been borrowed by the town and lead to a design that would cost an estimated $31.5-million to build. Fromm said it would target excess nitrogen in the Town Cove and Meetinghouse Pond. The system to be designed would’ve covered 250 businesses and 450 homes and handle 137,000 gallons a day.

“It allows us to determine future construction costs and the sharing of construction costs,” Fromm said. “It allows us to continue monitoring Namskaket Marsh and allows us to construct a new treatment plant that will not harm the marsh. It’s a non-zero-sum game with many winners.”

As it turned out the system proponents, Orleans Can and the Orleans Pond Coalition were not winners.

“A no vote does not mean you are against clean water,” selectman John Hodgson argued. He and Dave Dunford voted against supporting the article while John Fuller, Alan McClennen and Sims McGrath were in favor. “1-A uses the oldest technology and is the most expensive and is less effective.”

He said the town should wait till the states issues a report on alternative solutions and the county commission issues their study.

“So we can bring you a plan for clean water that everybody can afford,” Hodgson said, otherwise, “Your property taxes will be doubled.”

The projected cost for the full sewer plan (which covers about half the town) is about $143-million – and all six phases may not be needed to meet federal requirements of removing 55-percent of the nitrogen in the estuary. The Orleans Water Alliance, opposed to the plan, had suggested it could cost as much as $300-million,

“There are a lot of bogus numbers to arouse fear and frighten citizens,” Fromm told the audience.

He said the initial $3.5-million, plus construction of phase 1-A would cost the average homeowner $146 a year over 30 years (which adds up to $4380). Sewering the downtown would also permit apartments to be built above some stores.

Of that initial expense half a million would be for the preliminary design of a system for Meetinghouse Pond and $2.6-million for the final downtown and treatment plant design.

“Phase 1-A will sacrifice one body of water for another,” Furst argued, as the only speaker from the floor before the question was called by a 1427 to 4 vote. “High quality less expensive options exist.”

“Back in 1626 Governor Bradford rescued pilgrims from a shipwreck in Namskaket Marsh. Who will save it today?” he asked.

Whether it was saved or not may be debatable but 592 residents stayed the construction if the new treatment plant.